Notes

n/a ; broad ; below cross ; undividedThe top of the stone is the cross, which would have been upright when the stone was vertical. Below this lies the five lines of text which take up most of the face of the stone, but leaving a 'margin' at the bottom of the stone.

625 - 625 (Radford/1937b)Radford/1937b, cvi: ` Cadfan died about 625, which is approximately the date of the stone'.625 - 625 (Nash-Williams/1950)

625 - 625 (Nash-Williams/1938)

600 - 625 (Macalister/1949)

625 - 625 (Edwards/1986)

625 - 660 (Alcock/1989)Alcock/1989, 244, 'it is possible that the memorial was not actually set up until Cadfan's grandson Cadwaladr founded the church at Llangadwaladr late in his reign'.660 - 660 (Redknap/1991)

766 - 799 (Stein/1980)Stein/1980, 11, 149, note 27, 'a memorial to a long-dead king, erected after Wales had been influenced by Anglo-Saxon forms in the late eighth century'. She also argues that o date it to the time of Cadfan's death 'is to give Wales priority over both Ireland and Northumbria in the invention of the Insular majuscule hand'.600 - 699 (Jenkins/Owen/1983)

650 - 650 (Jackson/1953)Jackson/1953, 161, 'it may even be doubtful whether the Catamanus stone was actually erected on the death of Cadfan. The church where it stands was founded by his grand-son Cadwaladr, who dies in 664; and it is quite conceivable that the memorial was raised at the same time, say about 650, as part of the ceremony'.625 - 625 (Bischoff/1990)

600 - 633 (Davies/1982)

Language:

Latin (rbook)

Ling. Notes:

RCAHMW/1937, cv-cvi, 'the spelling sapientisimus and opinatisimus is characteristic in Insular script in the 7th and 8th centuries'. The classical spelling would be with 'ss'.

Macalister/1930, 465, argues that the repetition of 'rex' and 'regum' is 'an awkward tautology in Latin', but that this repitition is 'quite in order in a Celtic sentence'.

For the name Catamanus itself see the Name memo.

Palaeography:

Nash-Williams/1950, 57 '...mixed Roman capitals (C, I, N, O, X) and half-uncials'. Although his assignment of the letters I, O, and X to capitals rather than to half-uncial should be seen as uncertain.

Bischoff/1990, 89, 'shows a mixture of half-uncial with forms of a and m that reappear in the Irish-Northumbrian decorative capitals.'

RCAHMW/1937, civ, cvi, 'The A is a more ornate form of that noted at Heneglwys. The N with the cross-bar near the centre of the uprights and the square U occur in Gallic inscriptions after about 450; the second M in line 4 in the first half of the 6th century. For the E see Heneglwys. The H G, R, S and T are derived from the half-uncial book hand used in Gaul during the sixth century. The M in the 1st, 3rd and 5th lines is copied from the N...the lettering is the latest in the series in Anglesey'.

Jackson/1953, 160--161, 'almost pure MS half-uncials...Typologically it is the latest of all the inscriptions of the early group'.

For earlier palaeographic discussion see Westwood and Brash in Jones/1846b, 165-167, Westwood in Jones/1846c, 302-305, and Hughes/1924, 49-57.

It seems that the spread of the 'A' in the third line into the 4th line meant that the letters 'um' of regum had to be pushed onto a fifth line. The first four lines are all the same width, while the first two lines have larger letters than the next three.

Radford/1937b, cvi: `Cadfan ap Iago ap Beli, great-great-grandson of Maelgwn Gwynedd, lived in the early part of the 7th century.... Cadfan died about 625'.

Jackson/1953, 570, 645, sees the 'N' in Catamanus for -nn-, from an original -nd-, at 645 he argues that Cata- is for Catu-, and follows Williams/1980, 19, in arguing that this is a late and poor tradition. 'which arose when the unaccented vowels in a word were becoming or had become slurred and obscure'.